First, some business:
If you’re a fan of I’m Not Complaining, there are three simple ways to support this publication:
Share this post with your friends, relatives, colleagues, and social media contacts
Click the little heart button at the bottom of the post (validation is a beautiful thing)
Buy Me A Coffee https://www.buymeacoffee.com/Notcomplaining A special shout-out to our two most recent coffee-buyers, Georgina P. and Rob S. You too can be a patron of the arts for the price of a tall latte!
What? You haven’t subscribed yet?
On with I’m Not Complaining!
I make my living as a ghostwriter. People with a story to tell and who need help telling it come to me, or people like me. They share their story with me, and I work with them to refine it and make it more readable. Usually, my name stays out of it (hence the word ‘ghost’).
Last year, my brother, Brandon Steiner (yes, the ‘sports marketing guru Brandon Steiner’), came to me with a book idea that was significantly different from his previous books and asked for my help. He offered me a byline, which meant my name would be on the cover.
He told me the idea for the book was born as he watched the news during the COVID-19 pandemic. The reactions to the George Floyd murder, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the movement to defund the police were raising questions, and Brandon wanted answers.
What was going on - without the spin? What role do the police play? What has their job become? How do community members feel about police presence? Why and in what way has law enforcement changed? Why is recruitment down so significantly?
His idea was to ride around with cops, see what they do and how they interact with people on the street. Not once, but over the course of a summer. He hoped to learn, raise awareness, and encourage people to participate in the law enforcement discussion without a predetermined agenda. Brandon had already established relationships within the NYPD and knew he could make The Ride-Alongs happen. I agreed to work on his project with him.
Curiosity expands with knowledge, so the project grew as projects tend to do. The timeline got longer. The project now included visits to the Police Academy and the Crime Lab, as well as interviews with community leaders, and even a trip to Syracuse, NY, to observe the differences between big- and small-city policing. Brandon was even permitted to participate in the takedown of a major gang in the Bronx.
He got to live dangerously, and I got to sit here on my butt and write about it. Worked well for both of us.
The Ride-Alongs: What I Learned About Policing, Crime, and the New York City Justice System dropped last week. We’re very proud of this book – it’s a good read. If you’re interested in how and why the police do what they do and how civilians respond, as well as public safety and what one civilian learned on this journey, you’ll enjoy the book. It’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or you can order it through your local bookseller.
Did you enjoy this post? Then Buy Me A Coffee!
